Judge voids government seizure of WNC properties

1:27 PM,
Mar. 15, 2013

Written by

Clarke Morrison

A judge voided the government's seizure of Western North Carolina properties worth millions of dollars and in his ruling chastised federal prosecutors for engaging in "absurd contortions" of forfeiture law.

The U.S. Attorney's Office maintained that the seizures were valid because funds used to buy them were mixed with the proceeds of crimes committed by James W. "Bill" Bailey Jr.

But in a sharply worked rebuke, Judge Martin Reidinger sided with about 30 owners who contended in court filings that the government far overreached its bounds in seeking forfeiture of the ...